Art & Design
St Mary’s Catholic Infant and Junior Academies work together to create a caring, friendly and faith-centred community, where we seek to realise the full potential of all our family through the living love of Christ. All our work with children and their families, staff, governors, parishioners and the wider community is influenced by our core values:
Compassion, Respect and Resilience.
Intent
The purpose of our Arches Curriculum is to ensure that our children are successful in life and learning. The ‘Nine Arches’ Sankey Viaduct in Newton-le-Willows has been the inspiration for our curriculum. The viaduct was built by George Stephenson between 1828 and 1830 and the bridge, built to let trains cross above the Sankey Canal, has international significance as the world’s earliest major railway viaduct still in use.
Our Art and Design Curriculum, based on the National Curriculum, is designed to ensure our children receive a full and broad experience and understanding of different disciplines (drawing, painting, collage, sculpture and textiles), a range of mediums (watercolour, acrylic, charcoal, pencil, clay, recycled materials) and a variety of artists’ work from a diverse range of time period and place.
From this, we teach to the Arches Principles –
Ambitious – Resilience – Christ at the Heart – Health and Wellbeing – Excellence – Success
Ambitious
Our curriculum is designed to show our children that our ambitious curriculum will offer them rewards for the future. Our Art curriculum allows our children to see the how art, design and craft can embody some of the highest forms of human creativity, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own pieces of work.
Resilience
With high expectations and a challenging curriculum, we support our children in developing resilience and self-motivation, to overcome barriers in their pursuit of learning and enrichment. In Art, our children are able to explore their own skills, techniques and approaches to their work, giving them time to reflect, recognise things they are not happy with and be resilient in their thinking about it.
Christ at the heart
Christ at the heart along with our Mission Statement, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” we provide a high-quality education within a creative, stimulating, encouraging and mutually supportive environment where children are enabled to develop the skills they require to become successful in Art, knowing that, through these creative skills, we can celebrate and show the wonders of all that God has gifted us.
Health and Wellbeing
The Mental Health and Wellbeing of our children is paramount in both schools and we seek to ensure all of our lessons have enrichment and enjoyment, allowing children to find satisfaction and fun in the challenge. The actions of Art and the creative skills can be used to support children in their mental health and wellbeing, as a meditation technique or as a way to express their emotions.
Excellence
In all things, we strive for excellence both from and for our children, providing them with the best opportunities, with a curriculum sets high expectations for each and every child. High quality artwork, with clear techniques and thought put behind it, with a build up and progression of skills, is looked for in every Art lesson, with chances for all children to shine.
Successful
We work to help our children to be successful in all areas of school life, developing children who achieve whatever they put their mind to, and developing skills to help them to continue to be successful in the future. Art and Design has no right or wrong result, giving the children the chance to be successful in their own right and at their own skill level. Each Art lesson allows our children to expand their understanding, investigate materials, build their skill and grow in confidence in their artwork.
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Through our ‘ambitious’ curriculum driver, we want our children to relish the challenges that being an artist can bring. Our art curriculum challenges and inspires pupils to create their own work of art by providing them with quality first teaching and resources. We challenge our children to think critically, observe and develop a secure understanding of art and design through our structure: Research, Experiment, Plan, Create and Reflect. Our children will feel confident in creating their own works of art. |
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Through the ‘resilience’ curriculum driver, we promote optimism and determination in art. We encourage the children to refine their skills through work in sketch books. We endeavour to ensure that all children have a positive relationship with Art and Design and speak openly and honestly about their experiences in order for us to meet them at their point of need. |
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With Christ at the heart of our school, every opportunity is made to take advantage of meaningful cross-curricular links, particularly in R.E. There are plentiful opportunities to engage with and respond to artwork that depict Jesus. We celebrate children's personal development in creativity, independence, judgement and self-reflection where all are encouraged to grow to their full human potential. |
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At The Federation of St Mary’s Catholic Schools, we understand that happiness is linked to personal growth, health and development. We ensure our children are happy, healthy individuals. Our children know how art and design both reflect and shape our art, and contribute to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation. Art lessons create a sense of calm and mindfulness when creating artwork. With ‘health and wellbeing’ as a curriculum driver, we give children the confidence to thrive in a diverse, global society and be respectful citizens with British and Christian Values at the core. |
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Through the ‘excellence’ curriculum driver, we want to equip our children with the knowledge and skills to research, experiment, plan, create and reflect their own works of art and craft whilst also developing their knowledge on how different artists and designers use these skills to create works of art that are appreciated by a wider audience. |
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Through the ‘success’ curriculum driver, we want our children to experience success in Art and Design regardless of their age or stage – through quality first teaching and careful planning of lessons. All our teachers teach with the aim to ensure pupils have sufficient knowledge to progress through primary school and beyond so that they leave St. Mary’s as successful artists ready for the next challenge at Key Stage 3. There are regular opportunities to celebrate and display their artwork through exhibitions, displays and competitions. We want our pupils to have a clear understanding of the link between achieving well and having goals for the future. |
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Being an artist means that disciplinary and substantive knowledge complement each other harmoniously. Art disciplines such as sketching, painting, sculpture, craft are high profile within our art curriculum.
Implementation
All of our children will have consistent access to a broad, balanced and high-quality Art and Design curriculum which will encourage forms of pupil creativity; engage, inspire and challenge pupils; equip pupils with the knowledge and skills to experiment; invent and create their own works of art, craft and design; enable pupils to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of art and design; have understanding and appreciation of how art and design both reflect and shape our history; have an understanding and appreciation of how art and design contributes to the culture, creativity and wealth of our nation.
The 2014 National Curriculum for Art and Design aims to ensure that all children:
- produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques
- evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
- know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms.
We encourage children to be creative throughout their time at St Mary’s and beyond. The Art curriculum allows our children to develop their artistic styles and grow appreciation and enjoyment of the arts.
| VALUED - We value vocabulary in art and design and it underpins everything we do. |
| IDENTFIED - Art and design vocabulary is identified by the art and design subject leader and is explicitly planned for. |
| TAUGHT - Vocabulary is explicitly taught in every lesson. Our knowledge organisers are used as a teaching tool for key art and design vocabulary and the art and design medium term plans include additional vocabulary to be taught. |
| APPLIED - Once vocabulary is taught, it is applied. Children apply their vocabulary in their speaking and listening, writing and assessment outcomes in art and design. |
| LEARNED - Vocabulary is revisited and relearned. Vocabulary sticks in the children’s long-term memory. Lesson by lesson, year by year, children revisit and relearn key art and design vocabulary. |
Through an ‘explosion of experiences’, our youngest artists are exposed to the foundations of their art learning. Carefully planned art skills and experiences are provided for our children. High quality resources within our excellent provision gives the children a range of opportunities to refine their art skills: construction, craft, painting and junk modelling are just a handful of learning opportunities which are embedded within the provision daily. Art vocabulary is planned for. Staff are role models in demonstrating art vocabulary. The foundations of art learning in EYFS is linked to Year 1 and beyond.
Both our staff and children are enthusiastic about art and design. Through ongoing CPD, we strive to ensure our teachers have expert knowledge of the art they teach. Our pedagogy is firmly based upon our curriculum intent of embedding concepts into long-term memory so that they can be recalled, to ensure substantive and disciplinary knowledge and skills can be applied fluently.
The St Mary’s Catholic Infant and Junior Academies’ models ensures that lessons are effectively sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards defined end points. In our sketchbooks, you will see different colour dots, these link to a specific part of the Art and Design process. This is helping us to become artists.
We firmly believe that all children should have full access, including those with additional needs, to our art and design curriculum therefore lessons are scaffolded where appropriate in order to meet the needs of all our children.
Impact
We understand that we may not see the true impact of our art and design curriculum on our children as our art and design curriculum is just the beginning of a lifetime of learning.
Our well-constructed and well-taught art and design curriculum leads to great outcomes. Our results are a reflection of what our children have learnt. At St Mary’s Catholic Infant and Junior Academies, our philosophy is that broad and balanced leads to great outcomes and meeting end points at the end of each key stage. National assessments are useful indicators of the outcomes our children achieve.
We ensure all groups of children are given the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We strive to ensure that our children are equipped with the skills (through a growth mindset approach) to fluently be able to retrieve key facts from their semantic memory.
The quality of our children’s work, at every stage, is of a high standard. All learning is built towards an end point and at each stage of their education, we prepare our children for the next stage.
The impact of St Mary’s Catholic Infant and Junior Academies’ art and design curriculum is measured through the following:
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- Assessment at the end of each unit of work (a completed piece of artwork)
- Art exhibitions
- Work is assessed at the end of each lesson and at the end of each sequence
- Journey through sketchbooks to ensure children are refining technique
- Pupil voice
- Progress evident in children’s books and record of experiences
- Seeking views of parents where appropriate